Destination: North America
‘The Truth is People do Walk in L.A.’
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.10 | 11:06 AM ET
Ryan Bradley’s Good series Walking in L.A. gets off to a strong start. He aims to reverse the notion that Los Angeles isn’t a place for walkers, and he’s carrying a lot of statistical ammunition.
Everyone thinks they know L.A., even if they’ve never been west of St. Louis. Nobody walks in L.A., right? There’s that Missing Persons song, or that line from Steve Martin’s L.A. Story: “...it’s not like New York, where you can meet someone walking down the street. In L.A. you practically have to hit someone with your car. In fact, I know girls who speed just to meet cops.”
But the truth is people do walk in L.A. And bike. Fully 12 percent of all trips in Los Angeles are by bicycle or on foot—that’s more than Austin or Portland. In sheer numbers, L.A. has more bikers and walkers than Washington, D.C., or Chicago, or even San Francisco. And it happens to be far safer for biking and walking than all three, according to a 2010 Benchmarking Report by the Alliance for Biking and Walking. I lump walking and biking together only because, until very recently, so did everyone else. In the 1990s biking and walking were “alternative,” like rock music. Fifteen years ago, Los Angeles spent “about $1 million” a year on pedestrians and bike services. This year Los Angeles has earmarked $36 million on walking alone. Could it be that this western cow-town, this place that’s synonymous with self-reinvention, is reinventing itself?
Bradley’s first exploratory walk in L.A.: a 17-mile trek from LAX to downtown.
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Yahoo! BuzzMapped: California as the World’s Stand-In
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.10 | 10:18 AM ET
In 1927, Paramount Studios apparently produced this map of California, designating cities and regions that could double as various parts of the world. Now I can say I grew up near the stand-in for Wales. (Via The Map Room)
Que Lástima, Arizona
by Adam Karlin | 05.19.10 | 8:50 AM ET
iStockPhoto The state's new immigration law puts more at risk than tourism dollars and tacos. Adam Karlin reports from the Sonoran Desert.
Which American City Spends the Most on Food and Drink?
by Eva Holland | 05.18.10 | 10:54 AM ET
That’d be Austin, TX, per this cool graphic posted at Flowing Data. As the chart’s creators note, that’s a lot of Torchy’s Tacos. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
An Ode to Hawaii’s Messy Reality
by Eva Holland | 05.14.10 | 10:42 AM ET
Over at Nerd’s Eye View, World Hum contributor and Hawaii enthusiast Pam Mandel ponders the typical expectations of visitors to the islands, and how they stack up against the reality she’s gotten to know and love. From the post:
It’s weird to have a long term relationship with a place that isn’t my home. I’m keen to the flaws but part of my heart remains in the islands… [O]n my last trip there, I watched a traveler open the envelope and take out that staged photo, and, then, respond with such disappointment at the real thing. How can a place stack up against such oppressive expectations? Why would Hawaii want to be our Shangri-La, our Atlantis, our Bali Hai? It’s so much work, too much makeup, the lighting and the filters and the fiction to make a place paradise belies what’s really there.
And I’m good with what’s really there.
An Insomniac in New York
by Eva Holland | 05.12.10 | 3:58 PM ET
Bill Hayes has a lovely essay in the New York Times about life in his new home, New York City, a place seemingly purpose-built for insomniacs. Here’s a choice quote:
Sometimes I’d sit in the kitchen in the dark and gaze out at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Such a beautiful pair, so impeccably dressed, he in his boxy suit, every night a different hue, and she, an arm’s length away, in her filigreed skirt the color of the moon. I regarded them as an old married couple, calmly, unblinkingly, keeping watch over one of their newest sons. And I returned the favor. I would be there the moment the Empire State turned off its lights for the night, as if getting a little shut-eye before sunrise.
The whole thing is worth a read.
World Travel Watch: New Warnings for Mexico, Golf in Cuba and More
by Larry Habegger | 05.12.10 | 10:50 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Waiting for Oil in the Florida Keys
by Tom Swick | 05.11.10 | 10:56 AM ET
iStockPhoto On a visit to the islands, where some are now contemplating the unthinkable
Photo You Must See: Walking the Walk in Bryant Park
by World Hum | 05.10.10 | 11:42 AM ET
Frank Murray Kate Gilmore's live public performance art "Walk the Walk" features seven women in yellow dresses walking in circles in New York City's Bryant Park.
Searching for Neal Cassady in San Miguel de Allende
by Peter Ferry | 05.06.10 | 10:48 AM ET
Novelist Peter Ferry hunts down the ghost of the beatnik legend who inspired Kerouac, Ginsberg and so many others
‘If You See Something, Say Something’?
by Eva Holland | 05.05.10 | 1:13 PM ET
In the wake of this weekend’s attempted car bombing, Slate’s Noreen Malone heads to Times Square in search of “suspicious activity.” The result is an unusual sort of ode to one of the world’s most famous public spaces. Here’s a taste:
I asked Ghazi what sort of “unusual” behavior might grab his attention. “Someone panicky or paranoid,” he said. “You make a logical assumption that he’s off his meds.” And how often does he see that? “Oh! Every day.”
World Travel Watch: Travel Insurance Now Required in Cuba, Maoists Shut Down Kathmandu and More
by Larry Habegger | 05.05.10 | 11:14 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
The Titanic Awards: 10 Worst National Cuisines
by Doug Lansky | 05.05.10 | 10:29 AM ET
More than 2,000 travelers from 80 countries voted in the Titanic Awards survey. Here are the unlucky winners.
See the full photo slideshow »
Yosemite Through the Eyes of a Chinese Artist
by Jim Benning | 05.04.10 | 12:31 PM ET
Lovely piece in The Smart Set about Chinese artist Xie Zhiliu’s renderings of Yosemite National Park, which are now part of an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Xie visited Yosemite in 1994, a few years before his death.
There, he produced a series of paintings that are a testimonial to cognitive dissonance. He paints the mountains and trees of Yosemite, but they look vaguely Chinese. The vegetation looks sparse, like in the drawings that accompany Chinese calligraphy. The stones of Yosemite rise up with the stalagmite abruptness we expect of Chinese art.
Cognitive dissonance at work on a canvas can be a beautiful thing. I’m reminded of these impressionistic West-meets-East paintings by Van Gogh.
Why I Walk
by Bill Belleville | 04.29.10 | 10:57 AM ET
iStockPhoto No, it's not quick or expedient. But it offers something other modes of transport can't. Bill Belleville on traveling by foot.